ROI still remains a hurdle for social media success

I had an opportunity to attend Technology Marketing & Sales Think Tank round table discussion organized by ITAC and SMA recently. Marketing professionals from the high technology industry had an open discussion about our challenges and experiences in social media.

Almost all attendees expressed the point that we all use social media tools to some extent in our marketing efforts.  Most of us utilize social media for the purpose of brand awareness. However, we have a different strategic focus for each social media channel. Facebook, for example, is used as a main channel to employ the human side of an organization in order to engage with internal employees, vendors, existing/prospective customers as well as attracting potential talented people to join the company. No matter whether we are in B2B, B2C market or both, in the end,  we deal with people. People like to do business with people they like, period.

Most companies spend a considerable amount of time and resources to keep the social media platform updated with event pictures, customer quotes and featured employee stories, .etc. However, very few can prove to Senior Management the impact on ROI of social media. Currently, most marketers use vanity metrics such as total views, likes, shares and comment to evaluate the performance of social media platforms. These metrics, however, mean nothing from an actual financial perspective. We are struggling to prove that social media have a direct impact and/or influence the generation of  sales and revenue. To some extent, we can use what Dan Ariely  said about big data to describe social media: big data is like teenage intimacy – everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.

Besides the obstacle of social media measurement, most of us expect that social media will become even more crucial to the fundamental business model in the next few years. In the digital world, marketers are facing challenges in keeping pace with industry leaders in terms of breaking new ground and with the latest social media trends. Here are some suggestions that may help you keep abreast of the trend:

• Set a realistic expectation of social media performance to the Senior Management team. To maintain social media channel activities and to measure their performance is time consuming. It also takes time to demonstrate its impact on business.
• Develop a clear goal for each of your social media platform. It doesn't make much sense to post the exact same messages on each channel. Understand what your followers and target audience wants.
• Use social media platforms as listening tools to monitor the industry trend and competitive activities. By following key influencers for a specific industry and engaging with industry groups will help companies to build their thought leadership in the chosen field, both at the corporate level and at the personal level.
• Encourage as many stakeholders as possible to actively engage with your social media actions. There are many software solutions available in the market, Gaggleamp is one of the tools to empower your employees, vendors and customers to share your social media messages automatically.
• Integrate traditional marketing activities with social media campaigns to generate a better outcome. For example, to develop pre-event, during event and post event social media strategies and have a follow up plan. Make sure you figure out what’s the next step?